Abstract

William John McKell was an ALP member of parliament at 26, a cabinet minister at 29, and at 50 began a premiership initiating one of the longest-lived Labor regimes of any state parliament. Later he bacame Australia's second homegrown governor-general. The other, John Thomas Lang, never held office for over two years consecutively and left his party divided. While the two veterans lived into the 1970s, it was Lang who received the homage of parliamentary youngsters such as Paul Keating. Maybe the flash populist will always appeal more than the quiet achiever.